Today in many companies, the distribution of an Excel spreadsheet, accompanied by some stern wording around pricing compliance, often passes as a pricing enforcement strategy. In truth, that method actually invites intentional and incidental abuses in the implementation of a pricing strategy, not to mention limiting the sales team on what can be a dynamic, comprehensive and segmented price list. It doesn?t have to be a puzzle with extraneous parts that don?t fit together.
Organizations are better served by implementing a pricing strategy that takes into account customer attributes, timing and content of the opportunity. However, let?s not let these variables be determined by a remote sales rep in the field. Can you imagine if we had to rely on a person to search through an Excel spreadsheet to determine the cost of your roundtrip airfare from Houston to Chicago next month? It would be extraordinarily painful for the customer and the supplier. But today, that?s exactly what happens in millions of business-to-business transactions around the world.
Best practices for price enforcement today require that the systems most accessible by B2B sales representatives (i.e., CRM, ERP) include all of the potential attributes of a prospective customer or market segment, along with the pricing permitted based on the variables the sales rep will provide (i.e., products, volume, timing). To go one step further, best practices can also build-in acceptable ranges of pricing that may be extended to the prospect, along with automated escalation and approval processes that are initiated if the sales rep goes outside of those pre-determined price ranges.
Salesforce.com has established itself as the leader of cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. More than 100,000 organizations use Salesforce.com to manage sales cycles and customer relationship information. This is a perfect application to enforce your pricing strategy. And here?s the best news: PROS has partnered with Salesforce.com to provide a native application that simplifies your access to specific, accurate and optimized pricing data for each of your market segments. No more searching through Excel spreadsheets or organizing meetings to determine your customized pricing based on customer size and scope of order. Your field sales team will have all of this information readily available based on scientifically proven, optimized pricing data. No need to create special meetings or forums to discuss special pricing terms. Your sales team will increase responsiveness AND profitability all at once!
To find out more, visit http://www.pros.com/solutions/sales-effectiveness/quoting-salesforce/
If you have questions, drop me a line here.
Kevin Fitzgerald
Kevin Fitzgerald joined PROS in 2012, responsible for mid-market sales. In this role, he leads the company?s mid-market go-to-market strategies, including sales, marketing and channel development. He brings to PROS more than 20 years of sales, management and business development experience. He earned an M.B.A. from Duke University and holds a B.B.A. in management accounting from Pace University.
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Source: http://www.pricingleadership.com/solving-the-pricing-puzzle/
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